


After the Battle

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Broken Bones, Character Believes They're an Unimportant Hookup, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24197260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Stentor is injured in battle. He doesn't expect Alexios to visit afterwards.
Relationships: Alexios/Stentor (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 122
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	After the Battle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).



Stentor's arm is broken. 

He knew it the moment it happened: he felt the sharp and then throbbing pain as it happened, familiar from the other breaks that had gone before it, and knew the shaft of the Athenian's spear that had broken across his forearm had also fractured the bone. His troops had broken formation, on his command, and had waded into the battlefield; as such, although it was his spear arm that had broken, he knew he could continue. He bound his broken arm to the back of his shield and he put his spear into his left hand instead. He'd trained with both hands for just such an eventuality, and he wasn't unfamiliar with putting pain from his head until it could be dealt with. There was a job to do, and so he did it.

They won the battle, though he supposed it was less battle and more skirmish, and breaking his arm in a scuffle in Arkadia on the way home to Sparta just seemed careless and frustrating. He sat alone in his tent afterwards, at their temporary marching camp, with his arm splinted and bound and aching. It was an annoyance, yes, and one that would take him from the battlefield in person for some not inconsiderable time to come, but he knew injuries happened in battle. His regret was that his near-customary victory celebration would be forestalled by it. Perhaps his ridiculous broken arm would be the end of it entirely; as much as he knew he could go on quite sensibly without it, perhaps more sensibly than with, he also knew he'd regret its loss. He knew himself well enough to admit that to himself if no one else.

The first time had been a surprise to them both. He and Alexios argued their way from the battlefield and back up to the camp and though arguments were hardly unusual between them, it had taken a different tone to usual - one that Stentor wasn't sure he fully understood until they were alone. Once they pushed past the flap of Stentor's tent, however, and let it drop closed behind them, Alexios went quiet. Stentor recalls looking at him in the muted light once they were out of the sun and frowning at him as his eyes adjusted. He recalls the blood on Alexios' skin coming into sharper focus, the haphazard spatter across his face and neck, on his hands, on his weapons that he dropped unceremoniously to the ground. 

"What are you doing?" Stentor asked, and then, when Alexios looked at him, he knew precisely what he was doing: the expression on his face gave a very precise message. When Alexios strode over to him, he was prepared for what followed, or at least he would have said he was at the time. As it was, he was almost entirely unprepared. He'd expected a fight, and he'd expected to lose it, tired from the battle as he was. But Alexios didn't strike him. Alexios _kissed_ him. He took him by his breastplate, the fingers of one hand tucked into it by the pit of his arm, and once he'd pulled him forward, his other hand went to the back of his neck. Alexios kissed him like that, hotly, the metal of their armour clashing, blunt nails raking the back of his neck. 

Stentor wishes he could say that he didn't respond, but he did. He wishes he could say his response was to push him away, but it wasn't. He understands that's what a good Spartan would have done; Alexios had taken to wearing Spartan red, but he likely didn't understand that what he was doing wasn't done in Sparta, at least not past a certain age. Stentor had no interest in being anyone's _erastes_. He was far too old to be anyone's _eromenos_. He had no idea what Alexios had inside his head. But he spread his hands over the curve of Alexios' armoured spine and he kissed him back despite that. 

He remembers that the first time, they didn't take their armour off. It rankles that when Alexios pulled back, and when he bent him over the table where his map was, he was right about him; what Stentor wanted, in spite of himself and in spite of every Spartan rule it broke, was precisely that. When Alexios reached under Stentor's tunic and tugged away his loincloth, the heat of shame that rose in his cheeks was matched only by the heat he felt somewhere much lower. When Alexios slicked himself with spit for the lack of any other available substance, when he spread Stentor's cheeks and spat against his hole, when he rubbed the head of his cock against him, that was what he wanted. He wished it hadn't been so obvious that Alexios hadn't even had to ask. 

And afterwards, Stentor gave him as imperious a look as he could summon while Alexios rearranged his clothes. When he left, he didn't say a word; Stentor wishes he hadn't wanted him to.

The second time was much like the first. They marched back from the battlefield together, side by side, so quickly that the muscles in Stentor's thighs felt almost as hot as his face did from the argument. Alexios was right, but he didn't intend to admit it, at least not yet; the truth was, he enjoyed arguing with him too much to let it drop so quickly. He enjoyed the heat of it, the bite, the way they tore at each other verbally the way his men were duty bound not to. And when they were inside the tent, when Alexios quieted, when he threw down his arms, it was Stentor who made the first move. He hauled Alexios up against the tent's thick central support, pressed his back to it and kissed him. Alexios laughed. He wrestled him to the ground. When he fucked him there, his armour gouging the grass, he did it face to face. It wasn't comfortable, no - his armour dug in and Alexios' fingers left bruises. But that didn't mean it wasn't good.

The third time was in Megaris, not far from where they'd met. Just a fight on the road this time, on the way back to camp from a meeting with the local leader, their ten men against a small Athenian party ransacking a cart for food. It wasn't a battle, no, but it had the same effect as one; when the Athenians lay dead, and their weapons' blades were bloody, when Stentor's cheeks were hot and his blood was hotter, they went back to the camp. Inside Stentor's tent, he quickly stripped his bloodstained armour and tossed it to the ground in a shiny gold-red heap. Alexios watched, then did the same. When they kissed, like another attack, it was lying in their tunics on top of Stentor's makeshift bed. When they fucked, like another fucking fight, Alexios knelt between his thighs, knees spread, and bared his teeth with the strain of his pace. Stentor growled in his throat and he clenched around him; Alexios came like that, pushed deep and groaning. And afterwards, once he'd pulled out, Stentor thought that was it but he proved him wrong. Before he left, Alexios leaned down and took him in his mouth. He sucked him till he came, and _then_ he left.

Last time, it was Korinth. Stentor had a room with the garrison there by the city wall where they stayed ten days and on the seventh, they rode back together after an attack on a nearby Athenian camp. Before they touched at all, Alexios stripped himself naked, so Stentor raised his brows as he did likewise. He doesn't envy Alexios his body; his own is just as honed and muscular and capable of what it needs to do. He realised that afternoon that what he envied wasn't his physique, or his freedom to do as he chose, or his drachmae or his family's love. He doesn't envy Alexios, though that would be simpler. He _wants_ him, his sharp tongue and his strong arm and that look in his eyes when they fight or they fuck. He wants him, for the arguments and the quiet times that come after that, when they talk like equals and not enemies. But he's broken his arm, foolishly, carelessly, and now the fight that precipitates the rest can't happen. Alexios didn't walk back to camp with him. Perhaps that's for the best.

When the flap parts and Alexios enters the tent, Stentor knows he didn't expect to see him. He didn't leave the field with him, after all, not as he has for the past five battles, and it's been hours since they gathered their wounded and returned from the field to the camp. He expected that he'd taken his horse and his belligerent eagle and finally left their company, now Stentor was injured and couldn't fight back, and there'd be someone else to take his place. He knows he's not the only man Alexios has ever had. He's always known this would last precisely as long as it took for him to tire of playing Spartan, or at least to tire of him. He'd hoped it would take a while longer.

But here he is and Stentor frowns at him, from his table where he's sitting with his splinted arm resting on the top. 

"I thought you'd left," he says. 

"And gone where?" Alexios replies. 

Stentor shrugs. "Home," he says. "Hades. Why do you think I care?"

Alexios leaves his things by the entrance flap that he lets drop closed to block out the light and he walks over to the table. He hops up onto it, sitting there by Stentor's broken arm, swinging his legs a little. He's dressed in just his Spartan red tunic and a thick leather belt around his waist, and his skin is clean, Stentor realises. There's no blood on it, on his face, on his legs, his hands. His hair is damp and clinging to his neck. 

"Maybe you don't care," Alexios says. He slips his hand from his own thigh down to the table. His fingertips graze Stentor's. "Maybe I do. I went to find the man who broke your arm. I was bloody. I washed."

Stentor frowns. "Did you come to gloat you did what I couldn't?" he asks. "You can't find anyone else to fuck while I'm injured?"

"Are you telling me I should?"

"Are you telling me you won't?"

Alexios frowns. He stands, and Stentor expects him to leave, but he doesn't leave; he inserts himself into the gap between Stentor and the table instead, straddling his lap. He's not light; all that muscle has a solid weight to it, but Stentor doesn't mind at all. 

"I'm here, aren't I?" Alexios says. 

"You're here to keep an eye on me?"

"Both eyes," Alexios replies. "And both hands. And both lips, if that doesn't offend your fucking Spartan sensibilities." He leans in by Stentor's ear. His mouth brushes his neck. "Do I have to spell it out, Stentor? If I'm going to sleep in your bed, I didn't want to get Athenian blood on it. Wouldn't that be rude?" 

Stentor chuckles. An unexpected warmth blooms in his chest and he knows if his arm weren't broken, he'd stand. He'd take Alexios up with him, he'd carry him to bed and drop him there, and join him there, and do a number of things that Spartan men shouldn't do. But he's tired, and he hurts, and that can wait. 

It turns out Alexios isn't going anywhere after all.


End file.
